Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday July 07, 2009 @08:37PM
from the stop-pay-toll dept.

Lorien_the_first_one sends along a WSJ piece reporting on how Toyota is hoping to benefit from new Obama Administration regulations for automobiles here in the US. "Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone. Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan Motor Co. has for its Altima hybrid."

i agree that American Auto should suck it. The timing around the toyota patents sucks though.

Feet dragging patents may be great for the bottom line and act as some sort of poetic justice, but the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology. by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.

Toyota makes more money off the Greenwashing effect of selling the Prius with the Hybrid Synergy Drivetrain. the brand is so friendly now when you see a Toyota Kluger/Highlander fill up its 72L gas tank, it's perceived as a hipper choice than buying a Trailblazer or Land Rover.

Is a 72 litre gas tank in an SUV not quite small? My 1996 Peugeot 306 XN has a 50-55 litre tank (although the meter suggests 60L, I have never filled it up that much - I am assuming that includes the reserve) and its a medium sized hatchback.

I would wager that the Tailblazer and the Landy have much more thirsty tanks than the hybrid machine.

The Blazer and the Disco have no hybrid equivalents. Look at the illusion created by Toyota: the hybrid Highlander looks almost the same as the gas-only Highlander. both benefit from the greenwash even though only one of them is "green". Basically everybody that drives a Toyota benefits from the goodwill achieved with Toyota having a Prius in their lineup.

Through slight of marketing, toyota has turned an untenable product (leviathan class SUV) into something green.

There's no other kind. It takes years and years to revise a patent to the point where the USPTO will accept it. I worked at a (software) company that wrote and initially filed a patent in 2000, and it was still not through the process by 2008. Contrary to what many people around here may think, the USPTO does do a fair bit of work to try and make sure that patents are fair, so the process does take time.

the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology

That's debatable. Would Toyota have risked millions (billions?) on developing the technology in the first place if they weren't expecting a big reward if they succeeded. Without patents they would be the big losers now and those who dragged their feet and played it "safe" would be the big winners as they would copy the successful technology without having to risk a dime on developing it. I'm not saying that the current situation is ideal but when criticizing the patents, it's worth remembering the pros as well as the cons.

Actually, that's sort of the problem for Toyota. They got hit with a patent judgment [bloomberg.com] over their hybrid vehicles in eastern Texas a couple of years ago. The plaintiff was awarded nearly $100 a vehicle [scribd.com] as an on-going royalty (which is about 17% of Toyota's relatively slim profit margin).

So I agree. Kudos to Toyota for playing the game like it should be played. They got hit pretty hard and they needed to fight fire with fire. Good for them.

by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.

Presumably Toyota could license the patents to recoup investment costs and make a profit long before they expire. THAT's the way the patent game is supposed to be played. It lowers the barrier to entry for everyone and allows the innovator to profit.

Well, the government passing tax and trade caps and artificially driving up energy costs will just make Toyota's patents assets that much more valuable. They will be able to recoup their costs and then some several times over in the next 20 years.

Your not going to effect climate change within the next 20 years. I'm not trolling or anything but the reality is that every small or third world country that is going to benefit from the tax and trade the US is getting will be adding roughly 8-9 times the amount of carbon we can offset by their increased standards of living. Further more, no one is addressing China which is out polluting the US or India which is growing to be right up there.

That will not happen. Europe is meeting a lot of their Kyoto compliance through offshoring to china and India. The US has regulated most of it's manufacturing offshore too.

Any efforts to stop trading with China or India or any other country developing will either result in the same pollution going elsewhere or seriously hurt the US and EU hard. And the ability to change that will not be met in 20 years nor will the ability to go green happen at the same time.

but the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology. by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.

Oh sure, whine about big bad toyota protecting their research, acting as though they'd still behave similarly without patents. Meanwhile, advocate stripping them of their possessions because of the issue of the day - it's too important to make money on!

If we do this to them, we can do it to you down the road. It's not like toyota is just sitting on their laurels here.

The neat idea behind Chrysler's design is that the turbine must be de-coupled from the drive train. The electric engine is the thing that is moving the car. This way the turbine can run at the most efficient RPM.

The fact is that American car companies built cars that could actually make a profit on. Those vehicles were SUV's.

The neat idea behind Chrysler's design is that the turbine must be de-coupled from the drive train. The electric engine is the thing that is moving the car. This way the turbine can run at the most efficient RPM.

That's not a particularly new idea... Diesel-electric submarines were built this way back in the 1930's.

Incorrect. GM *lost* money on many of it cars. I recall the number being around $1,000-$1,500 a vehicle. The SUV's were the only line where they actually made money per car.

Personally, I think GM should have just let the autoworkers pull a world-wide strike years ago. In the long run they would have been ahead even though the short term costs would have been very painful.

There is no conspiracy other than the will to survive. You can see why a company losing money on each car would *have* to fight against further regulation.

This is the same argument used for drug price controls - let someone have a breakthrough and then steal their work. All that does is keep people from investing in research. Think about it for a moment. If you spend a year of your time developing a new technology and your competitor proceeds to copy it, then to break even you have to charge a higher price than you competitor would need to since you have a year of your time as an extra cost. The idea is that if the patented idea is good enough, the compet

This is the same argument used for drug price controls - let someone have a breakthrough and then steal their work. All that does is keep people from investing in research.

Er, no. Pharma corporations don’t spend much of their own dollars in research; most research is done in university, often funded by government grants. What pharma really do is “research” into having the drug approved by authorities, and then spends heavyly on marketing.

I believe this has been their plan from day one. While the Prius and their other hybrids have been good for the company both in terms of corporate image and moving vehicles, patent licensing is where the money is.

By cornering the market on hybrid system patents (many of which would also apply to hydrogen and other alternative-energy vehicles), they stand to make a lot more money than just selling their own cars. The Ford Escape hybrid is a perfect example, as Ford licensed Toyota's 1st generation hybrid drive system rather than developing their own (Toyota had already moved on to the newer hybrid system by that point in time).

I disagree, simply because Toyota is easily the #1 leader in hybrid auto sales, and is making lots of money from them all by itself. Here's a cite [newsweek.com] for those assertions and lots more about how the Japanese and Toyota in particular are about to reap a windfall for their forward thinking engineering. Choice quote:

"Toyota has already reached the break-even point on sales of its hybrids; by contrast, its foreign competitors, like GM, still have years of bleeding red ink ahead of them. Toyota says the parts in its next line of hybrids, due for release next year, will cost about half the current bunch, allowing it to drop prices and raise profits. While the company is estimated to have lost about $10,000 on each car produced when the line was launched back in 1997, "the new Prius is going to be hugely profitable," says Nikko's Matsushima, bringing in thousands of dollars per car.

Meanwhile, as of just six weeks ago, you have GM clinging to the old line [usatoday.com]: "as long as gas is cheap, Americans will want big, powerful vehicles. He compared [Obama's] policy to trying to fight obesity by having the government require that clothing only be made in small sizes." This after GM already went broke pursuing that strategy, while Toyota is poised to make a killing on their small fuel-efficient cars!

Toyota had and has as many big SUVs as any of the other automakers. Go check out their lineup.

Sure. The question is, why did Toyota invest its profits from the last generation of technology to stay relevant in a changing world, whereas US car companies almost completely failed to do so?

there are as many parts in a small car as a big SUV while the margin on the SUV is much more fulfilling.

You mean "were." SUV's are getting dumped in fire sales. This resulted in the bankruptcy of GM, which only accelerated the trend. When the world economy starts to recover and oil prices surge again, will the traditionalists finally realize that the 90s are not coming back?

Also, good luck with that battery pack - you must not have any laptops, flashlights, or toys to know how frequently batteries fail and have to be replaced.

Now there's the GM mindset in a nutshell: "if toy companies haven't already solved the problem, we're sure not going to try!"

I'm fairly sure the idea is to have the engine spin at the optimally efficient RPM and drive a generator designed to also provide maximum power at that RPM and that will be more efficient than running the engine at any of the range of RPMs required at various speeds.

I don't buy it as:

1. The HSD system already uses a CVT system that keeps the engine damn close to that optimal RPM across the speed range, so I don't see much possible gain there.

If patents are supposedly to encourage new technological developments, without knowing the details, it sounds like this might actually be a responsible use. After all, it gives Toyota a financial incentive to come up with more efficient cars. And the competition is actually licensing it. Unlike in the farmaceutical industry, where companies patent publicly-funded findings from NIH research so that they can be the only ones profiting from it. Or software, where people patent stuff to be able to sue their competitors out of a product space.

Exactly, those that have worked on alternatively powered cars have a portfolio that will allow them to produce such cars. Those who have not are going to be left behind. This is right and proper. The companies include GM and Chrysler. Though it was probably ok to bail out these companies to assist semi-skilled semi-educated employees who would have otherwise been left with little hope of gainful employment, we do have to admit that the technical and management expertise seems so antiquated that there seems little hope that they will be able to compete. And don't complain about the expensive pay to workers. That is why they existed, to allow the semi-skilled high school graduate to enter the middle class. It did not prevent them from better funding appropriate research [autobloggreen.com]. A year ago the volt would have been a lifesaver. Now, who is going to buy a car from a company that may not be able to back it up?

The Atkinson cycle engine technology in the Prius is based on the engine invented by Atkinson to avoid Otto's patents on the internal combustion engine. The idea of the patent is to protect the inventor. A side effect of that is to spur creativity in others to develop alternatives that don't violate the patents. That doesn't mean that no one else can make a hybrid without paying Toyota, it means that they can avoid Toyota's patents by inventing a different hybrid technology. I haven't heard of Honda paying Toyota for the hybrid tech they put in the Civic and other hybrid models.

American researchers in universities did a lot of R&D on hybrids back in the '60s - it's time for the American auto companies to continue that.

BTW - my understanding is that Ford didn't pay for Toyota's technology because it was easier than inventing their own. Rather, they invented their own hybrid tech but it was not sufficiently different from Toyota's in the end and they had to pay as a result.

They didn't "have to pay", they just decided to licence Toyota's system because it was very similar and was much, much better than Ford's. So they decided to carry on in the same vein, but skip the R&D and buy a much better performance system "off the shelf" rather than continue to refine their own version, which is a good use of the patent system - Toyota developed it after all, and put in a lot of time and money, so for Ford to benefit from that, they can licence it and get a ready researched system r

Because they want people to think they're on top. Unfortunately, the general population still believes that patents reward actual innovation and ingenuity, when actually they reward people that patent general ideas that can be used against the entire industry to kill innovation and make millions of dollars in royalties.

This is a common misconception, but Ford does not license their hybrid technology from Toyota. Related post at Autoblog where they explain: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/05/editorial-attention-i-wall-street-journal-i-ford-does-b-n/

They had been working half-assed on hybrids since 1993 and were more than happy to give all that up to take cash from the US government to show million dollar hydrogen prototype cars and trucks. Can you say dumb? Unfortunately, the US government is allowing them to continue operating and sticking US citizens with the bill. IMO, any of those three which couldn't continue operating should have been parted out and the remains crushed like GM did with the EV1. What a waste of money and it is their own fault Toyota is going to stomp on them with patent licensing costs as they should. After all, Toyota was the one who had to endure about 8 years of bashing by the US press and US auto makers for doing hybrid systems. They even had to endure a law suite by Mobile/Texaco when Toyota and Panasonic built prismatic NiMH batteries the oil company said were outside of the NiMH patent licenses which Mobile/Texaco purchased from GM. The large NiMH batteries used in the Rav4 EV had to be discontinued but at a cost of millions of dollars, they were allowed to continue making and using the prismatic design used in the Prius battery packs. Toyota deserves to be rewarded for what they've done with and for hybrid system designs.

"what does that have to do with not developing hybrids?" it has everything to do with it when they do it to the exclusion of the other technologies. The US auto makers were even anti-hybrid while the Bush/Cheney administration was paying them to go after hydrogen. Toyota has a fuel cell vehicle also but they didn't blink on continuing the hybrid line. I saw it as a way to keep a hand in the market incase there were the required breakthroughs to make them viable. It's the exclusionary aspect of how the Big 3

Given that Honda seems convinced that their tech doesn't conflict with any Toyota patents I'm curious as to how specific these patents are. If they're general enough for any automaker to run afoul of them just by making any sort of hybrid system then I'd imagine they could be invalidated through prior art. If they're much more specific to the Prius drivetrain then there are other questions, like how many patents deal directly with the drivetrain, vs control software, or other elements like battery tech? If it does get to that point then it can be debated if the public good of having more hybrids from different automakers outweighs the legitimate issue of rewarding Toyota for spending years and what was probably a fair sum of money in the development of their hybrid tech. I imagine that these patents cover a combination of the 2, and ford (and others) have decided that paying Toyota is cheaper than bringing a legitimate challange.
I'd guess that at least a few of these patents deal with the weird new "cvt" that only uses planetary gears instead of belts or chains, which is a pretty significant and original idea for a car. A simulation of the gear system can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/inachan/prius/planet_e.html [mac.com]

It is common for tecnology companies to file patents for defensive purposes. The purpose is not specifically to prevent others to compete but rather to prevent patent trolls to extort money from them in the future. Having as many things related to your product patented create a body of prior arts that can be used to fight suits by these trolls.
What happens in an industry where there are a few major players (car, printers, etc) is that they end up cross licensing each others' patents anyway. This way the can focus on producing and selling their products without having to deal with lawsuits from patent trolls all the time.

The typical patent troll is a (usually small) company that does not produce the product itself, but only tries to cash in on the patent. So the patent troll does not violate the defensive patent, and suing them back becomes useless.

Where it works is among companies that actually produce the product in question. Which often ends up in cross-licensing as you correctly observed, and in that context patents might as well not exist at all.

So Toyota is just supposed to let a decade of R&D go out the window? I hate software patents as much as the next person, but Toyota had to invent physical items from scratch in anticipation of high gas prices. They were way ahead of the curve and deserve to be compensated by having their inventions protected for a period of time so they can recoup their costs and make a profit. You want to have a state-of-the-art hybrid? Buy a prius.

Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota

I would like to introduce to you the Ford Fusion Hybrid [usatoday.com], which has been rated above the Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima hybrids in numerous reviews.

And while Nissan did license Toyota's hybrid technology, Ford did not. The Ford Fusion Hybrid is the first automotive hybrid drive train to be developed in the US, by a US auto company, and built in North America for an American car. So if Toyota is trying to preemptively squash competition with their patents, they are too late.

Prius is lower-priced, has about the same room inside, has a handy hatchback configuration, gets better mileage â" and most of those attributes could improve when the 2010 Prius goes on sale in a few months â" so how could Fusion be the best hybrid?

Simple. Fusion drives better. A car is, after all, a driving machine. Brownie points for saving somewhat more fuel or offering a cargo-friendly hatchback, but driving feel is most important.

Also, mileage in particular is noted as mediocre for a hybrid in this review - and isn't that pretty much the defining characteristic for any hybrid?

I went to Toyota's UK site and looked at what's available. Most of the cars there are available with insanely efficient diesel engines, for some cars there's more than one option. And they're more environment friendly, since there's no battery to make and recycle, fuel efficiency is comparable, and the only harmful byproduct is soot, which settles on the ground.

I would LOVE to buy those cars here in the US. Thing is, they're not available here. My plan is to wait until they are, so if Toyota wants to sell me a car, they better offer a diesel one.

Bear in mind that the mpg that you are seeing is based on the fact that an Imperial gallon is larger than an US gallon. It is 4.5l for an Imperial gallon to 3.8l for a US gallon. Naturally they get better MPG.

That said the fuel efficiency of diesel cars in Europe is quite astounding, the Audi A2 was the best but no longer in production. The VW Bluemotion Polo and Gold do around 61mpg (US gallon), which is better than a Prius.

They expended big bucks on the technology over the years when the rest of the automakers were building crap like giant SUVs and Hummers. This is Capitalism 101 at it's finest. You take a risk when the market niche is young, and benefit when the rest of the world catches up.Toyota makes fine automobiles and the American big 3 deserve to go bankrupt for the shit vehicles they have been producing up 'til now.

From everything I've read, Ford independently developed their hybrid technology, then discovered that it was close enough to Toyota's that they had to license Toyota's patents.

Nissan, on the other hand, is using Toyota technology itself, purchased directly from Toyota, the only major difference being that the gasoline engine part is a Nissan engine as opposed to a Toyota. The electrical bits are 100% Toyota.

Since when does Japan care about US Intellectual Property law? Sorry for sounding so harsh, but part of the reason the American semiconductor industry died is the Japanese companies didn't pay licensing on the patents for RAM. It's no wonder they could build it cheaper.

Even today, I have several friends who design stearing columns for most of the major automakers. Toyota buys the minimum run of columns, then takes the shipment and reverse engineers it to build them on their own. No licensing or anything, so my friend's company just barely breaks even (the minimum order is just enough to cover the engineering costs).

So now they're going to use the system that they ignore because they'll make money off of it? Fuck. That. Shit.

Nope. Diesel-electric locomotives use the diesel engines to power electric generators that then power individual electric motors at each wheel. The diesel engines are not directly connected to the wheels. The closest car analogue is the Chevy Volt.

Hybrid-electric vehicles, meanwhile, are basically just regular ICE vehicles that share a common driveshaft with an electric motor. They can operate entirely on electric, entirely on the ICE, or combine the two.

Those are series hybrids, which is how the Chevy Volt will work (when the gas engine is engaged). The Prius is a series hybrid as well (it's got a neat but relatively complicated dual electric motor pseudo-CVT system). Other cars, such as the Honda Insight (the old one, don't know about the new) was a parallel hybrid, where the electric motor provided additional torque, but couldn't run the car alone.

Yeah, it's similar. There are some differences (trains don't generally have to deal with stop-and-go traffic, etc) but the idea isn't too far off.

I remember reading in Forbes years ago that there was a car company (Ford?) who wanted to make a hybrid. They developed their own system and it performed much worse than the Prius (the first gen in the US). That, combined with the fact their system was so similar to Toyota's they were afraid of lawsuits, led them to license the Toyota Hybrid System (THS), which was later named the Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD), since the Fords of the world wouldn't want their cars being powered by a Toyota Hybrid System.

It's a bit of a mess, but at least there are some hybrid cars. As other companies do more of this stuff (like the Volt, the Fusion if it doesn't use the HSD, etc) it will get to the point no one will be able to produce a car without violating patents, so they'll just cross-license everything and things will be the same as they are now.

Yes, it was Ford, and it was functionally similar enough to HSD that upon close inspection, it might as well have been HSD. They licensed the HSD from Toyota while implementing their own design, the licensing done entirely for legal reasons, while they themselves licensed some of their diesel tech to Toyota in exchange. As the article points out, no money changed hands.

Implementation-wise, what you've got is an independent traction motor and a generator that's slaved to the ICE. The generator's engaged when the battery is at low SOC, which you perceive as the engine then starts struggling to both propel the vehicle and charge the battery at the same time. The generator only acts as a motor in the act of starting the ICE. The independent traction motor handles both propulsion and regenerative braking.

Yes, it was Ford, and it was functionally similar enough to HSD that upon close inspection, it might as well have been HSD. They licensed the HSD from Toyota while implementing their own design, the licensing done entirely for legal reasons, while they themselves licensed some of their diesel tech to Toyota in exchange. As the article points out, no money changed hands.

Ford buys 90% of it's hybrid powertrain from Aisin and Denso (Aisin is part of Toyota, and Denso is practically part of Toyota). Ford never developed a thing. The reason no money changed hands is because they agreed to buy the powertrain from Toyota at ridiculous prices. The whole thing is really quite funny, as Toyota/Denso probably make $1000 for every hybrid Ford sells, and Ford loses around $5000 on each one.

Nah. The really funny thing is that Ford could have spent money 10 years ago to also develop this stuff when Toyota didn't have any patents on it. Instead they spent the money lobbying congress so that they could continue to build gas guzzlers and wouldn't be bound to California's zero emission standards. In contrast, Toyota saw the writing on the wall and used Ford/GM/Dodge's stalling tactics to get a headstart on where the market would eventually go.

...is to research and develop products for the future, not the present. It's called having "vision" and being able to (correctly) see where the industry was heading, and having products available when they're wanted.

Toyota's understanding of what buyers will value in the future enabled it to identify low emissions as a key selling feature as early as 1992 [hybridcars.com], in the first version of its Earth Charter [toyota.co.jp]. Unlike US automakers, who likely would send this announcement (if it existed at all) to their PR firm to be

What do you mean they never developed a thing? There are very few ways to put an electric motor and a gasoline motor together in a car to make it work. Ford did not license Toyota's hybrid synergy drive. Ford licensed about 20 of Toyota's patents when the Ford developers noticed the similarities. There are hundreds of other patents that went into the Ford Fusion that have nothing else to do with Toyota's hybrid synergy drive.

You have the series and parallel confused. A series car typically has the electric motor inline with the engine to provide boost. This is how the original Honda Insight and hybrid Civic work. A parallel hybrid like Toyota's Prius and the Ford Escape can run on any combination of electric and gasoline. It uses a planetary gear assembly with the gasoline engine driving the planets. The sun gear goes to a generator/alternator (that can also be a motor) and the outer ring goes to the wheels and another electric motor. The CVT is basically just how it shunts power between the two motors. Mechanically it's fairly simple. If the gasoline engine dies it can use the electric motors to power itself. If an electric motor dies the car won't move.

Patents are both an inducement to innovation and a barrier to entry. Hybrid motors are a case in point. I have an investment in Capstone Turbine, a promising low-emission microturbine venture. They lack the marketing clout or production efficiencies to stave off a larger company that could freely copy their innovations. I would not invest in Capstone Turbine unless they held patents. It is easy to document how patents are used as a weapon to curtail competition. However, the burden of a patent reform propos

I could not tell after reading and rereading your comment if you actually understood the difference between a series and parallel hybrid, so here we go: In a parallel hybrid both the electric motor and the whatever-else motor (gasoline, diesel, air, whatever) drive some wheels somewhere. You could have electric to the front wheels, and gasoline to the rear; that would be a parallel hybrid. In a series hybrid, only the electric motor(s) drive the wheels, and the fuel engine (or whatever) is connected only to a generator which can charge the batteries. The electrical energy from the generator can be added to the output from the batteries to provide power for acceleration, but what is relevant is that there is no mechanical connection between engine and road. If the electrical and fuel engines both go into a single transmission which drives the powertrain, it is a parallel hybrid. Every hybrid currently available from a major automaker is a parallel hybrid, though as others have mentioned there are upcoming series vehicles, like the Volt. In most cases, parallel hybrids can only limp home without gasoline, if they'll even do that. However, in most cases parallel hybrids can be driven in any battery condition (so long as they are undamaged) if you refuel them.

I don't know what "A series car typically has the electric motor inline with the engine to provide boost." means... In cars, boost is what you get from turbocharging... unless you're talking about Knight Rider. A series car by definition does not have the electric motor inline with the engine. AFAIK the only people who ACTUALLY have an electric motor literally in line with the engine is Subaru; I don't know how close they are to production but a year or two ago they demonstrated an Impreza with an automatic trans, and the torque converter replaced with an electric motor. Pretty hot. However, that is a parallel hybrid system...

It's a bit of a mess, but at least there are some hybrid cars. As other companies do more of this stuff (like the Volt, the Fusion if it doesn't use the HSD, etc) it will get to the point no one will be able to produce a car without violating patents, so they'll just cross-license everything and things will be the same as they are now.

The purpose of patents is to prevent progress. It's no longer to permit an inventor to the exclusive use of his art, and perhaps it's never been. There will never be a mass market electric car because these competing companies would rather prevent the electric car than share the market that destroys the internal combustion engine with another carmaker.

Unless we do away with patents. Then it's a race to market with the cleverest implementation of the newest technology you can get, because that's what sells, and every popular feature becomes common (commons?) in a very short time, requiring car makers to make continuous improvement in order to stay in business.

I am not trolling, but I think an argument can be made (and has been made in many other slashdot threads) that patents (can) do exactly the opposite - advance progress, in the slightly longer term.

While they arguably can 'prevent' progress in the very short term for someone who doesn't want to license the patent to make a related invention/device, for something that's expensive and/or time-consuming to develop, there is no incentive if someone else can come along and steal the idea immediately. At that point, only the very rich or very altruistic will make inventions.

I am not saying that the ONLY reason people make inventions is to get rich.. but the possibility of that happening is IMHO a reason someone goes beyond just pondering a new idea into developing it further (and/or at least further enough so that someone besides the inventor can use).

Every new thing these days has many parts. No matter how clever you are you are unlikely to discover anything unique that can get to market by itself. And so you are blocked by all the myriad others who got to the patent office before you, or who might have. Instead of spending your time innovating new things you waste your brilliant years playing the patent game. Small inventors have almost no hope any more.

This is not a new thing. I believe the commercial exploitation of the steam engine was blocked

It doesn't have to be this way. Although the US Constitution allows the Congress the power to grant patents, it in no way compells Congress to do so. If they stopped doing it, the rennaissance of the craft inventor would energize innovation.

Patent statutes have been around for 500 years. When was this patent-free "renaissance of the craft inventor" you hypothesize? 'Cause frankly, there's been a lot more innovation the past 500 years, or even in the past 50 years, than there was in the previous 5000.

It's actually pretty well documented [dklevine.com] that patents retard progress. The extent of retardation depends on which studies you read. And a not so familiar example is James Watt. I say he was not so familiar because when I went to high school, he was painted as the hero who started the industrial revolution. What they didn't tell me in school was that Watt pretty much spent the entire 17 year life of the patent in litigation. Real advances in the steam engine weren't introduced until after the patent expired

No. Software and process patents are there to prevent progress. Engineering patents have a very nice effect, of other engineers being informed about the technology behind the patent. In software it's the combination of copyright and patents that is the killer of innovation. As a reverse car analogy, it's like you patenting some process but releasing the source code under GPL for the solution.

The purpose of patents is to prevent progress. It's no longer to permit an inventor to the exclusive use of his art, and perhaps it's never been.

It's true... In the past 500 years in which patent statutes existed, no inventions have been made and we've made absolutely no progress in the technological arts. Why, just going back to the 1980s and the State Street decision legalizing business method patents, there has been absolutely no innovation since.

No, the prius is a paralell hybrid with electrical and fuel storage. The gas engine can drive the wheels directly. The electric motor can also drive the wheels directly without the gas engine running.

Locomotives wheels are only driven by electric motors, and the electricity comes from the gas engine. There is no direct connection between diesel and wheels. There is also almost no electric storage between diesel and electric motors, so if the diesel engine stops, the electric motors stop.

The prius real advance is the ability to manage and smoothly use whatever power source is best suited at any time.

I hope that, like half-Japanese girls, half-Japanese hybrid cars look exotic and very sexy. I'm sick of the science-project or iMac-humped-a-toaster designs that most people seem to put novel drivetrains in.

Which is a major reason why the Prius and the Isight and the Volt get such good mileage. And look pretty much the same as well. Extremely low drag coefficients. Put a box on four wheels to hold four humans, some cargo, and an engine, and when you get right down to it there's only one optimum shape.

Then explain, pray tell, why the Mercedes E-Class [wikipedia.org] looks pretty 'normal' and yet has a better Cd than the Prius or Insight?

Achievable Cd numbers are pretty close for a wide range of vehicles, so most of the difference in aerodynamic drag is due to the difference in frontal area. There's really no excuse to munt up a car's appearance just to eke out another 2% improvement in Cd when they can reduce actual drag by far more simply by making it a couple of inches narrower.

On the highway, aerodynamics do play a part. However, I think the engines and their management play a greater role. The Prius uses Atkinson-ized cam timings. That means greater efficiency at the cost of power. Honda, on the other hand, also uses lean-burn and somehow got around the resulting higher NOx production too. And, of course, there's the electric drive which can capture, store, and release kinetic energy in the city.

So what did Toyota do that prevents competitors from innovating something better?

Depends on what they patented and how willing or unwilling they are to license.

But it comes down to if you improve upon and existing patent you have to license the that patent. IfB is an improvement on A.. you still have to license A. And if you create C that is an improvement on B.. you must license A and B to not be infringing.

If you want everyone to build hybrids or other efficeint cars, you simply CAN NOT allow one company to have a stranglehold on the technology!

Quite right. As soon as Toyota uses their "mammoth" patent portfolio to keep GM or Ford from making hybrid cars, the government should step in... and institute mandatory licensing of Toyota's patents.

Toyota paid money to develop techology, and then TOLD US HOW THEY DID IT on the condition that they'd get control of who makes it for 15 years. Good for them. GM and Ford have done much the same thing, for a boondoggle more patents. If the private companies cannot find a way to get a profitable margin betwe

I'm all for patent reform, but this seems to me to be a classic case of the appropriate use of patents. The parent is just a moron. Toyota put a helluva lot of money and time into its hybrid technology, why shouldn't it reap the benefits of it, whether through the sale of its own hybrids or by licensing the technology?

I think I agree. Patents should not be allowed to be used to hinder like Toyota is doing. There needs to be a way for patents to be arbitrated and while still protecting the inventor's rights and investments, not allow them to use patents to prevent others from competing.

Toyota isn't just locking up hybrid patents, they are also locking up fuel cell and control system patents.

I have a Honda Civic Hybrid that just had its hybrid battery die at the 64,000 mile mark. It's well within warranty and Honda r

Patents should not be allowed to be used to hinder like Toyota is doing.

They are not. You are free to license the hybrid technology from them or develop your own. All major automakers including VW have patent portfolios numbering tens of thousands that are being licensed and crosslicensed all over the place, this is nothing unusual.

That's the whole point. For a technology that can help the whole planet, mandatory but also fair licensing is the way to go - in my opinion. I certainly believe that Toyota should be entitled to a profit from their innovation. I also believe that their innovation should be protected. But this kind of technology is in an area that is pretty much essential that the whole world adopt. How do you balance the ability for Toyota to tie up other companies and prevent competition with something that needs to be adopted across the board?

Volvo licenses their safety patents for free. They consider it for the greater good as well as good marketing. And there are a lot of Volvos on the road. I'm not saying that Toyota should just give away their hybrid patents, but there is precedence of a viable company doing that and making quite a bit of money along the way.

The upshot is that if you believe that global climate change is real, humans have a very small window now to avert disaster - if that windows hasn't closed completely already. I think civilization as we know it and a billion or more human lives, as well as untold numbers of animals kind of take priority over patent rights.

Let Toyota make a profit from the patents but don't allow them to limit competition or to choke off what could be a huge part of preventing disaster. These need to be mandated licensing with arbitrated fees.